The Honda teams issued the following press releases after the first day of testing at Austin, while the Repsol Honda team also included a brief video of the day:

Repsol Honda duo dominate day one in Austin

Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez enjoyed a very positive first day at the Circuit of The Americas track in Austin.

It is the first time MotoGP has visited the Texas track, both riders exited the garage at 11am this morning and found the track very slippery from the start. On their first runs, they recorded lap times of around 2'12. However, as the track became cleaner and temperatures increased, the lap times steadily dropped.

MotoGP rookie, Marc Marquez, took the fastest lap of the day with a 2'04.619 lap recorded on lap 54 of 55. His teammate, Dani Pedrosa was second fastest for the day with 2'05.047 lap on lap 51 of 59.

Testing will resume tomorrow morning at 10am local time.

Marc Marquez 1st 2'04.619

“The first day in Austin went pretty well. It is a fun circuit, because there's not a single bump on the track. There was no grip at the start and we were sliding around a lot, but gradually the lines were cleaned up and we could tackle it better. In the first part of the track, where the flowing chicanes are all linked up, it is a very tricky section. It is a physically demanding part of the circuit where you have to use a lot of strength to change direction quickly. It is definitely a key point of the track. There are three right-handers later on, all linked together, making it hard to find the ideal line. We are finding our way steadily though. Today was all about learning those lines, rather than trying out too many things with the bike. Tomorrow we will start to adapt the gearing and the electronics, as we have a lot of work ahead of us"

Dani Pedrosa 2nd 2'05.047

“It is a new circuit – and a very different one at that. This makes it important to put in plenty of laps, to get your reference points established: braking markers, gear changes, finding out whether you are best off in second or third gear – things like that. It was good to ride a lot of laps today, and also to see how the tyres faired. The track has a lot of tight corners – above all Turn 1 – but there are also flowing chicanes and some long straights. The pace and direction changes from section to section, which is a little strange at first. However, after so many laps, you get the hang of the track. Even if the grip levels aren't especially good, the overall feeling is positive"

BRADL APPROACHES THE “COTA” FOR THE FIRST TIME

Austin, 12 March: The Circuit of the Americas in Austin (Texas) opened the gates to the MotoGP action today hosting a private test which see HRC and Yamaha Factory riders taking the 5.513Km race track for three days of work. COTA circuit (located 160 miles from Houston) became a new addition to the MotoGP calendar and the premier class riders will line up at the Texan track in April.

LCR Honda racer Stefan Bradl became familiar with the track managing 51 laps aboard his Honda RC213V Factory Spec. with a best lap time of 2’06.053 (4th overall).

Bradl: “It’s a very nice circuit with an interesting layout and everything is well organized. You can see it’s a bit more for car races (especially in the first part) so it took me some time to find the ideal line but after some laps I started to enjoy it. After we have analyzed the track, we started to work on the bike set-up because there are many hard-braking points and a lot of fast changing direction here. Overall it was a quite good first run out for us and I was positively impressed by this new circuit which is very technical”.